Oct. 13, 2017, 10:10 a.m.

President Trump on Friday announced new restrictions on Iran -- "a terrorist nation like few others" -- but stopped short of scrapping the landmark nuclear deal that was the Obama administration's signature foreign policy achievement.

Instead, he called on Congress to consider reimposing sanctions if Iran crosses certain lines, such as firing ballistic missiles or financing terrorism.

For now, Trump said he would not certify that Iran was in compliance with the 2015 deal that curbed its nuclear program, as he has twice before under a law requiring the president's certification every 90 days. But in addition to asking Congress to enact potential new sanctions, Trump moved to impose unrelated sanctions by executive action, including blacklisting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's elite military unit that is heavily involved in much of the country's business and trade.

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Oct. 13, 2017, 9:41 a.m.

President Trump on Friday backtracked from his threat a day earlier to limit federal assistance to Puerto Rico, saying that the United States would help all states and territories beset by recent natural disasters.

“We’ll be there,” Trump told Christian conservatives at an annual gathering known as the Values Voter Summit.

Trump grouped Puerto Rico with Texas, Louisiana, Florida and the Virgin Islands, all of them blasted by hurricanes, as well as California, beset by devastating wildfires. On Thursday he'd singled out Puerto Rico, perhaps the most damaged of all but where federal efforts have been most criticized, to warn on Twitter that the government's efforts there can't go on "forever."

Oct. 13, 2017, 9:09 a.m.

Limiting instead of scrapping the federal income tax deduction for state and local taxes would preserve the benefit for all but the top 1% of earners, but would raise only about a quarter of the revenue for lawmakers looking to offset broader proposed tax cuts, according to a new analysis.

The nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimated that a full repeal of the deduction — a key and controversial component of the sweeping Republican tax cut plan — would increase federal revenue by $1.8 trillion over the next decade.

Limiting the state and local tax deduction to individuals with adjusted gross incomes of no more than $400,000 (or $800,000 for married couples) would slash those revenue gains to $481 billion over the same period.

The Halloween decorations are just going up and Thanksgiving is more than a month away. But President Trump is getting an early jump on Christmas -- the Christmas culture war, that is.

"We're getting near that beautiful Christmas season that people don't talk about anymore," he told an enthusiastic crowd of Christian conservatives on Friday. "They don't use the word 'Christmas' because it's not politically correct."

Oct. 13, 2017, 8:04 a.m.

Within hours of the Trump administration's announcement that it would stop payments to insurers that are designed to help make healthcare affordable to low-income people, Democratic state attorneys general threatened to go to court.

I am prepared to sue the #Trump Administration to protect #health subsidies, just as when we successfully intervened in #HousevPrice!

At stake is roughly $7 billion in annual payments that the government has been making to insurers under the Affordable Care Act. The payments go to reimburse insurers for reducing deductibles and co-payments for lower-income consumers. Congress has never passed an appropriation for the money, and the administration said Thursday night that it had concluded it did not have the legal authority to make the payments without such legislation.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, one of the key Republican votes that blocked the party’s effort to repeal Obamacare, announced Friday that she will forgo a race for the state’s governorship, remaining in the Senate at least until her term expires in 2020.

“I am a congenital optimist and I continue to believe that Congress can and will be more productive,” Collins told an audience in Rockport, Maine, at the end of a speech on healthcare reform.

“I want to continue to play a key role in advancing policies that strengthen our nation, help our hardworking families, improve our healthcare system and bring peace and stability to a troubled and violent world, and I have concluded that the best way I can contribute to these priorities is to remain as a member of the United States Senate.”

Oct. 13, 2017, 5:07 a.m.

Iran’s military establishment defended itself Friday in response to reports that President Trump would seek new economic sanctions against the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Hours before Trump was due to announce his decision to alter the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, the Revolutionary Guards issued a statement through the Sepah news agency, boasting that it was “the most effective corps in the region.”

Iran’s military public relations — representing ground, air and naval forces — also rallied behind the elite force, saying that any insult to the Revolutionary Guards “is an insult to the entire ruling establishment,” Sepah reported.

Days after President Trump said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was "wasting his time" trying to negotiate with North Korea, the president's chief of staff, John F. Kelly, said Thursday that diplomacy was crucial to dealing with the nuclear-armed nation.

"Right now there’s great concern about a lot of Americans that live in Guam. Right now we think the threat is manageable," Kelly told White House reporters on Thursday. "But over time, if it grows beyond where it is today -- well, let’s hope diplomacy works.”

North Korea was just one topic that Kelly touched on in a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room that seemed timed mainly to allow him to debunk numerous recent media reports that he is unhappy in his job and might quit. It was his first such public exchange with reporters in the nine tumultuous weeks since he replaced Trump's first chief of staff, Reince Priebus.